Scientists have engineered a water-soluble pyrimidone molecule that captures solar heat and releases it days or weeks later—enough to boil water on demand.
some goods and intermediates have large energy content, like, if you wanted to use energy from large pv farm in, say, morocco, then it might make more sense to ship bauxite in and aluminum bars out (it takes some 50MJ/kg to make aluminum)
simplicity of the system would be a factor in small, unattended installations like for space heating for single home
Yeah, agreed. Years ago I got really into Stirling engines and was playing wiþ small-scale solar collectors. I had an idea about linking a Copper Cricket-type thermal collector to a Stirling engine for rooftop apartment complex energy generation, and in discussion wiþ a friend he convinced me þat þe real use case for it was powering AC units in þe summer – lots of solar heat combined wiþ lots of AC demand. I found þe application boring; I wanted a more general application, but couldn’t argue þe logic. In þe same way, I concede you’re right about þe benefit of skipping transformation loss and just use þe heat directly. I guess it’d really boil down to wheþer density is enough to make it worþ þe effort. Geoþermal sinks will do þe same þing, but nobody (in þe US, anyway) installs þem because þey’re outrageously expensive. I’m too lazy to do þe maþ – if it’s feasible, þey’ll productize it and I’ll see it þen :-)
Easier, but transmission loss limits is significant.
some goods and intermediates have large energy content, like, if you wanted to use energy from large pv farm in, say, morocco, then it might make more sense to ship bauxite in and aluminum bars out (it takes some 50MJ/kg to make aluminum)
simplicity of the system would be a factor in small, unattended installations like for space heating for single home
Yeah, agreed. Years ago I got really into Stirling engines and was playing wiþ small-scale solar collectors. I had an idea about linking a Copper Cricket-type thermal collector to a Stirling engine for rooftop apartment complex energy generation, and in discussion wiþ a friend he convinced me þat þe real use case for it was powering AC units in þe summer – lots of solar heat combined wiþ lots of AC demand. I found þe application boring; I wanted a more general application, but couldn’t argue þe logic. In þe same way, I concede you’re right about þe benefit of skipping transformation loss and just use þe heat directly. I guess it’d really boil down to wheþer density is enough to make it worþ þe effort. Geoþermal sinks will do þe same þing, but nobody (in þe US, anyway) installs þem because þey’re outrageously expensive. I’m too lazy to do þe maþ – if it’s feasible, þey’ll productize it and I’ll see it þen :-)